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A majority is more than half. The poll you revivified out of its grave was 39.5% for "within the the next 5 years." 177 members voted. That was far from enough to say the poll represented the total number of Forum Members, let alone the opinion of such.

Happy Halloween!

« Last Edit: November 02, 2014, 07:19:57 AM by mecch »

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“From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need” 1875 K Marx

no, that's simply the incorrect conclusion based on those choices. The results of that poll we took just showed how under-educated HIV positive people were (and still are IMHO) as to how drugs are created, tested, approved, and eventually marketed. Anyone looking at the status of trials in 07, especially with a minimal understanding of the drug-manufacturing process, should have easily understood that another decade would go by before anything like a cure might have become marketable - and that it would only happen in a best case scenario.

Frankly looking at the the progress today toward potential candidates for a cure or vaccine, and trying to predict an unknowable future, I would bet that we're probably still a decade away . . . at least.

Wow. Some people think that the negative partner will take Prep all its life to fuck with his poz partner. which world are you living in ? Who can afford to buy Truvada every month ? Prep is not free in the great majority of country. And what percentage of people will accept to live with a pozie and take Prep all their life ?

Second, majority of infected people are not able to take ART because it is too expensive. So a vaccine could save lots of lives. let's not forget them.

Third, we are not sure if there is really zero transmission with an undetectable poz . What we know for sure is that it happened in the past and even undetectable elite controllers have transmitted the virus.

Wow. Some people think that the negative partner will take Prep all its life to fuck with his poz partner. which world are you living in ? Who can afford to buy Truvada every month ? Prep is not free in the great majority of country. And what percentage of people will accept to live with a pozie and take Prep all their life ?

Second, majority of infected people are not able to take ART because it is too expensive. So a vaccine could save lots of lives. let's not forget them.

Third, we are not sure if there is really zero transmission with an undetectable poz . What we know for sure is that it happened in the past and even undetectable elite controllers have transmitted the virus.

Many insurance plans do pay for PrEP ... it’s not the end all but an important tool in the arsenal .

Wow. Some people think that the negative partner will take Prep all its life to fuck with his poz partner. which world are you living in ? Who can afford to buy Truvada every month ? Prep is not free in the great majority of country. And what percentage of people will accept to live with a pozie and take Prep all their life ?

Second, majority of infected people are not able to take ART because it is too expensive. So a vaccine could save lots of lives. let's not forget them.

Third, we are not sure if there is really zero transmission with an undetectable poz . What we know for sure is that it happened in the past and even undetectable elite controllers have transmitted the virus.

Treatment as prevention is HAART for HIV+ people. The HIV - sex partner DOESNT NEED TO TAKE PREP. HELLO?

PREP is a slightly different set-up. Nobody is counseling people in sero-discordant relationships to take PREP for the rest of their lives....

May I ask what country you live in so I can know the context of your statements about the price of treatment and access. Where is this majority of people who cannot take treatment because of cost? USA? Or, where? It would help all - some specifics, will help us understand your reasoning.

You are throwing a LOT of diverse issues into this soup of a justification, you realise that?

And have you seen the price of the HEP C cure. Don't count on an HIV cure being an exception to the rule, and freely available to everyone around the world.

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“From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need” 1875 K Marx

Wow. Some people think that the negative partner will take Prep all its life to fuck with his poz partner. which world are you living in ? Who can afford to buy Truvada every month ? Prep is not free in the great majority of country. And what percentage of people will accept to live with a pozie and take Prep all their life ?

Just adding information. Latest research said that its effective to take Prep only 2 days before and 2 days after having unprotected sex.

This strategy does not involve a vaccine, or a cure, because nothing such is available right now and we have no guarantee that it might become available in the near future. So, their strategy is only about providing a wider access to effective antiretroviral therapy (ART).Thanks to ART: - no more HIV transmissions- no more HIV+ persons progressing from HIV to AIDS

If this strategy proves effective, I don't think that finding a cure or a vaccine will be a priority anymore, as it was in the last decades. So I'm afraid that there will not be a lot of funding for this kind of research.Although I would love to be cured someday, I am afraid that it might never happen, unless someone makes a big discovery "by chance" in the next 5-10 years.

I think dico was referring to resource poor countries in his post, where we must remember the majority of new infections (and old) are always going to be.

35 million cases globally, only 2.5 million of those are in resource rich countries. Basically PrEP is irrelevant in that context. However this will change eventually once the patent expires globally, but I've read that will not happen until 2021 for Truvada.

edit: August 2013 FDA approved a generic Truvada for use outside of the US-only under PEPFAR due to shift in WHO treatment guidelines/cd4 threshold. Still, it remains to be seen how this would apply to PrEP in such settings.

I think dico was referring to resource poor countries in his post, where we must remember the majority of new infections (and old) are always going to be.

35 million cases globally, only 2.5 million of those are in resource rich countries. Basically PrEP is irrelevant in that context. However this will change eventually once the patent expires globally, but I've read that will not happen until 2021 for Truvada.

edit: August 2013 FDA approved a generic Truvada for use outside of the US-only under PEPFAR due to shift in WHO treatment guidelines/cd4 threshold. Still, it remains to be seen how this would apply to PrEP in such settings.

Here is my motivation for my posts in this thread.

I perceive Dico to have high anxiety about living with HIV. (true or false I don't know)

Some of us have poked at the reasons he (she?) maintains this anxiety - because I guess we think it might be a good idea to come down to earth.

Dico mentions a number of "rationales" for why the Cure is so important - but these seem to show insufficient awareness of the current facts about living with HIV.

My impression is that a lot of Dico's "arguments" are free-floating, anxious-making "rationalisations", but not based on reality.

I wonder the real reasons? If its due to unnecessary fatalism about HIV then its a pity.

Dico you can think what you want or feel what you want. And it might be best if you could educate yourself enough to know when your "rationalisations" -- taken from the "general experience" don't hold water. Are they used to justify your anxiety - which is based on what, exactly? Better to search within for why: this high anxiety (if that is what you have - I dunno) and this over-investment in the cure.

As far as "most HIV+ people in the world are too poor to have treatment" - I think this is an old truth, but now threatens to be a stereotype because it seems in very recent years this is changing (has changed) quite a lot.

Some people in developing countries list the combos available to them, through national socialised schemes - and its not always the old "crappy" meds anymore. Also, intense roll-out of sponsored treatment in the very poor nations.

So its probably best to not cling to old "images" that only make the HIV epidemic and the fight to end it seem more hopeless or negative than it is.

As other members have pointed out, there are plans to END the epidemic NOT based on the availability of a cure.

finally this one particular justification or rationalisation, ("we need a cure for HIV because most people are too poor to afford treatment) if held by a member of a rich nation, seems to have a LOT OF PROBLEMS attached to it. Do I need to go into them?

Dico of course I don't know what country you are from so I am not assuming anything.

Finally - I know that poverty and unequal distribution and access to health care is a problem in the HIV epidemic. But let's just not assume anything who is poor and who does and doesn't have something, and make generalisations based on.... anything but facts...

« Last Edit: November 03, 2014, 01:45:45 PM by mecch »

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“From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need” 1875 K Marx

Meech, all that may be true but is this board a form of the Inquisition? If dico isn't willing to engage in a discussion of such matters then what is the point? I agree it's an important topic to bring up with someone, but to do it over and over and over serves no purpose. If and when he realizes that's what he's been doing the damage will be so great he/she will only benefit from engaging a professional therapist, not people on a message board with no training in such things.

Meech mentioned this and I think it's probably the most important aspect of this discussion. The END of the hiv epidemic is already in the works with the current treatment and prevention methods in place.

Treatment as prevention, prep, pep, and safer sex practices combined with increased testing have a real chance in ending hiv.

Hillary Clinton and President Obama have talked of it among many others. Ending the hiv epidemic may have nothing to do with a cure.

Meech, all that may be true but is this board a form of the Inquisition? If dico isn't willing to engage in a discussion of such matters then what is the point? I agree it's an important topic to bring up with someone, but to do it over and over and over serves no purpose. If and when he realizes that's what he's been doing the damage will be so great he/she will only benefit from engaging a professional therapist, not people on a message board with no training in such things.

Agreed.

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“From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need” 1875 K Marx